Jeeno Thitikul is well aware of the conversation that surrounds her every major championship.
But that doesn’t mean she’s buying into it.
In a year where World No. 1 Nelly Korda won the first two majors and World No. 3 Haeran Ryu won the next two, Thitikul, the World No. 2, is still hunting for her first.
After a round in which Thitikul parred her first three and last three holes and birdied seven of the 12 in between them, she was willing to admit she was pleased with a strong performance in one of golf’s biggest events.
“I knew I hit some good shots, but some of the best shots luckily bounce over the pot bunker,” she said with a laugh. “When it’s your way, it’s really your way. And I knew I had a really good putter today, too.”
As for the big-picture question? Thitikul, who’s 23, demurred.
“It’s nothing. I feel like, I know that I haven’t won one yet, but I feel like I’m so young and then I still have I don’t know how many majors ahead of me,” she said. “I feel like one day it will come if I do my job, like keep improving at my job and then … when my game is ready, I’ll win it. Because when my time comes, it should be sweeter than what it felt.”
The key, Thitikul says, is not to show up thinking about the trophy at the end but focusing on the controllables.
“What I can control is if I’m beating the course every day, I should have a really good chance to be on the leaderboard,” she said. “Because, you know, if you can put a red number on your scorecard every day, which means you beat the course, right, and the golf course in a major week isn’t that easy to be beating.”
On Thursday, just 25 players from the 144-player field finished in red figures. Korda posted two-over 73, while Ryu sits among the group at five under par, T2.
Thitikul’s close calls are well documented; her top finishes at majors date back to her fifth-place finish at the 2021 Evian Championship. She’s logged 11 top-10s since then, her closest call coming in a playoff loss at last year’s Evian, when she lost to Grace Kim’s eagle on the second playoff hole.
She comes into this week in strong form, off consecutive top-10s in majors and with two tournament wins already this season, at the Honda LPGA Thailand and the Mizuho Americas Open.
Now comes her last and biggest test.
“I think majors really tests our games, mentally-wise, physically-wise,” Thitikul said.
So far, so good.
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